Constable barred from working in wife's court: We did nothing wrong

Jon B. Whittington is a state constable who has been barred by Northampton County's president judge from working for his wife, District Judge Patricia Romig-Passaro of Bethlehem.

Jon B. Whittington is a state constable who has been barred by Northampton County's president judge from working for his wife, District Judge Patricia Romig-Passaro of Bethlehem. (MONICA CABRERA, MONICA CABRERA/THE MORNING CALL)

Constable banned from working in wife's court says they sought ethics advice before marriage

They met on a beach 200 miles from home. He had recently started working as a constable from York County. She was a district judge from Bethlehem.

They got to talking, sharing their common interest. A romance sparked. A year later, they got engaged in Las Vegas. Five months after that, in March, Jon B. Whittington and Patricia Romig-Passaro married at a ceremony in Northampton attended by 150 people.

At no point, Whittington insists, did he and his wife try to keep their relationship secret. So, he said, they were shocked last month when a court order was faxed to her Stefko Boulevard office without warning, ordering her to "immediately cease" using him as a constable and citing judicial rules banning nepotism.

"I was never contacted. My wife was never contacted," Whittington said last week during an interview with The Morning Call. "It came across the fax at 1:35 [p.m.] Friday."

Whittington said he spoke with the newspaper because he believes he and his wife have been unfairly maligned by Northampton County officials. They weren't attempting to skirt ethics rules preventing judges from employing their family members, he said, but rather were operating under the advice that no conflict existed.

"If they think we didn't cover our butts on this," he said, "they're out of their freaking mind."

Early this year, Whittington said, his wife reached out to a member of the Ethics and Professionalism Committee, a panel of district judges who advise their colleagues on potential ethical snags. Romig-Passaro was told that the relationship did not create a problem, because constables are an independent office and are not employees of the court, Whittington said.

"They just kind of assured us that everything was fine," Whittington said. "They told her that she is judicial branch. [I am] executive branch."

Whittington said the advice came from the vice chairwoman of the ethics committee, B. Denise Commins, who is a district judge in Lancaster County and who provided his wife a verbal, and not a written, opinion.

"If they would have told us any differently, we would have stopped at that point," said Whittington, saying he and his wife aren't "trying to make any trouble for anyone here."

Commins did not return a phone call Monday seeking comment.

It was Northampton County's president judge, Stephen Baratta, who barred Romig-Passaro from using Whittington as a constable. Baratta's May 15 order said the court had recently learned that Whittington and Romig-Passaro were married, and that she was directing work to him.

The order highlighted judicial canons that say district judges "shall avoid nepotism" in appointments and hiring, including a "spouse or domestic partner." Baratta said he issued it after consulting with the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, which told him to act immediately.

The order came as one county official accused Romig-Passaro and Whittington of trying to keep their relationship under wraps, despite his work for her since 2013. County Controller Stephen Barron said he felt "deceived," having met with Whittington earlier that month, when the constable did not disclose the marriage.

On Friday, Whittington said it was none of Barron's business.

"Where do I answer to him in my personal life?" Whittington asked. "He's not my boss in any way."

That drew a rebuke Monday from Barron, who noted he is tasked with auditing financial records across the county to ensure there are no irregularities.

"It becomes my business when he's collecting money from the county … and she's the one signing off on the payments," Barron said. "I audit Judge Romig-Passaro, so it is absolutely my business if she is employing her husband. No ifs ands or buts about it."

Barron called the couple's relationship "too close for comfort" and a clear conflict.

"I don't see this as a witch hunt," he said. "For me, it is about the right thing, about doing the right thing."

Baratta did not return a phone call Monday.

Constables are elected and, at times, appointed law enforcement officials who typically work at the district court level. They earn their living through the fees they collect for serving warrants and subpoenas and transporting prisoners.

Some constable fees are covered by county revenue, while others come out of charges that defendants are assessed by the state court system. According to records provided by Barron, Whittington earned $5,975 in work for Northampton County in 2013. In 2014, he received $27,538.

This year, Whittington has received $9,688 from the county, though that figure does not account for the state portion of the fees, which Barron said last month he had yet to receive.

Whittington noted that Barron has scrutinized his bills on several occasions without finding wrongdoing. Whittington, a tool-and-die maker by profession, said he became a constable as a retirement job, and said he has voluntarily ceased working since the court order was issued.

(Romig-Passaro has been on leave from her office for an undisclosed reason, which Whittington declined to comment on, other than to say it is not disciplinary. Court Administrator Jill Cicero said Romig-Passaro is not under suspension, and her court is being covered by senior judges.)

Historically, employing family members in the courts has not been an unheard-of practice. Though judicial canons have barred district judges from nepotism since at least 1973, at the county court and appellate court levels, no such provisions existed until last year, when canons governing those judges' ethical behavior were rewritten.

That distinction is on display in Easton at the Northampton County Courthouse, where Judge Emil Giordano's mother-in-law serves as a court officer in his courtroom, and Judge Michael Koury Jr.'s uncle plays the same role for him. Those two employees were allowed to be grandfathered in under the new canons.

Also, in February, The Morning Call reported that the court had hired the daughter of Senior Judge Leonard Zito as a law clerk, where she initially worked several times in her father's courtroom. Court officials said Alicia R. Zito's hire complied with nepotism provisions because it was Baratta who hired her as a clerk.

Whittington was a constable based in Manchester Township, York County, beginning in August 2013. Last September, Baratta appointed him as a deputy constable in Northampton County, to work under longtime Bethlehem constable Charles Seyfried, who is Romig-Passaro's uncle. Seyfried has served in his niece's court, and he also served her mother (and his sister), Elizabeth Romig-Gainer, who held the district judge's office for three decades before her daughter succeeded her in 2007.

Recently, those kinds of relationships have come under scrutiny statewide, said Robert Pollock, a deputy court administrator in Bucks County who has dealt with the issue. In Bucks, several district judges used constables who were family members, though the practice has ceased since the county court began frowning on it, he said.

"I know they weren't happy, but they realized they had to do it," Pollock said of the affected judges.

Pollock pointed to a 2014 study of constables by the Joint State Government Commission that raised concerns about the "nepotistic approval of fees." He also highlighted a 2014 opinion issued in Bucks County by a member of the Ethics and Professionalism Committee, which found that district judges' employing constables who were relatives was "inappropriate."

"Just because a longstanding practice has been occurring, it does not mean the practice is correct or ethical," wrote the member, District Judge William Chisholm of Crawford County.

Pollock said he anticipates that a judge or a constable will eventually seek to challenge the rules, leading to a definitive statement from the courts on whether they apply in such situations.

Whittington also predicted a fight ahead, given differing approaches in differing counties.